Former Louisville pediatrician pleads guilty in murder-for-hire plot to kill ex-husband

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A former Louisville pediatrician will be sent to federal prison after pleading guilty and admitting to stalking her ex-husband and attempting to hire someone to kill him.

The trial of Stephanie Russell was set to begin Monday morning in U.S. District Court in downtown Louisville and expected to last six days, but instead wrapped up in less than two hours with Russell accepting a plea agreement. If Judge David Hale agrees to the prosecution's recommendation, Russell will be sentenced to at least eight years in federal prison.

Had she gone to trial, Russell faced up to 15 years, along with up to a $500,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

Russell, who is now 53, previously ran the popular Kidz Life Pediatrics in Louisville before being arrested at her office in May 2022. Her arrest was one day after an undercover federal agent posing as a hitman picked up $3,500 from a lockbox outside of her office that Russell had given him the code to open, prosecutors said.

The cash had been agreed upon as half of the total payment to the agent, whom Russell told to make her ex-husband's killing look like a suicide.

When agents executed a search warrant at her home, they found another $2,400 in cash inside a shoe box, which they said would go toward the hitman's fee. As part of the plea agreement, Russell agreed to forfeit those funds.

Prosecutors: Russell's attempts to find a hitman started in 2021

There was a small delay in Monday's proceedings early on after Russell became lightheaded and collapsed in front of a table, hitting her chin on it as she went down. Judge Hale ordered a recess and a medical professional checked Russell's vitals before all parties determined she could continue.

Prosecutors said Russell's attempts to find someone to kill her ex-husband started after a family court judge awarded permanent, sole custody of their two children to their father in April 2021.

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About three months later, Russell began telling multiple people, including some employees, that she wanted to get "rid of her former husband by hiring someone to kill him." Included in their evidence was a recording of a former employee and Russell speaking at a Starbucks, where the employee gave Russell the number of a hitman in Chicago, who was an undercover agent.

The case against her also includes burner phones, another individual hired by Russell who began stalking her ex-husband, and a purported healer who told Russell she had an "85% death rate" for a spell she could cast on the man.

After the couple separated in 2018, Russell filed multiple emergency protection orders against her ex-husband that year, and Russell's attorneys said she believed he was abusing her children — an allegation that a family court judge found was groundless.

Hale will decide her sentence during a July 31 hearing.

Contributing: Andy Wolfson, The Courier-Journal

Contact Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com.